: : pxldan : :

I spent this last weekend in Pueblo for Fiesta Day at the Colorado State Fair. Last year was the first year I had attended the fiesta and thankfully I was invited to participate in an art show for the event again. The show was organized by Ed and Charlene Simms and participating artists included Jerry Jaramillo, Carlos Fresquez, Evelyn Martinez and Pueblo's Doug Candelaria.

In addition to the parade and a multitude of acts around the fairgrounds we also checked out the Celebracion De Los Charro. The event featured Colorado's Charros de Las Delicias accompanied by Mariachi Vasquez. However, big draw of the event was the horsemanship and rope work of Tomás Garcilazo. The only regrettable part of the weekend was eating fried fair food for every meal - churros, fry bread and a deep fried snickers bar. This was the first time I had tried the snickers (last year i did the twinkie) - not impressed. My father tried the cheesecake - not bad.

I'll post some more photos when I have a chance.

A friend in Seattle sent me the this short bit about one journalist impression of Denverites while visiting for the DNC. I'm sure not all visitors have been as pleasant. BTW - one of my big pet peeves is guests, to any location, complaining about that location to their hosts - how rude.

"Life expectancy has to be higher here in Denver. Everyone is lean and fit and looks like they just finished mountain biking, are on their way to yoga class, and might end the day with a run."

"The other striking thing about the city is the number of dogs. There must be a city ordinance requiring all residents to own at least one dog. I'm not talking roving bands of stray dogs here, just everyone on the street with a leash in hand, and dogs that look very accustomed to hanging out in coffee shops, chilling in the shade of sidewalk cafes, and in general being part of the life of the city."

David Kurtz, Dog Town U.S.A. - Talking Points Memo

Typically the daddy-to-be does not get to participate in the pre-birthing festivities - for good reason I'm sure. However, us aging lads made our own pregnancy pact and that merits special guest status at our own non-shower. What do you buy a dad-to-be? Honestly, when asked, I drew a blank. Like I have any idea.

Anyway, this invitation is super awesome so I thought I'd post it. Much love to the Wera Family for reminding future dads that we always have a place to hangout on the weekend!

 

Do you love power point presentations? Who doesn't? Want to share your presentations ala youtube? Then slideshare is the site for you!

A while back I created a new MosaicGlobe website to store and organize my grandfather's photographs (click here). In the process I was able to collect a number of articles and interesting background information. Mostly from my Uncle who has taken a very active interest in our family tree. A couple of years back I had the chance to visit to the small town where my grandfather was born. A small coal mining community just west of Trinadad, CO. near the New Mexico border. I need to put those pictures up as well. This summer I am hoping to make the trip back as I have been told there is a small graveyard in the area where a number of family members were buried. Anyway, the site is of interest to the family and I still have a lot of pictures I need to restore and add to the site - but it's been a blast to create and there's some nice pics of my dad as a child : ).

 

Also, for Christmas this year I created a cool hardcover photobook using the software from Blurb.com. It came out pretty nice despite a few mispelled words (that's why I hate print). You can view the preview at http://www.blurb.com/user/dannyvigil. At the time the software for the Mac was really buggy and I had to relaunch often. However, I haven't tried the latest version so hopefully it's more stable. A big thanks to Wendy at wazobirdstudio.com for the idea with her fascinating MosaicGlobe family website schwabik.mosaicglobe.com.

Mac likes to boasts that the Mac operating system is "safer" than a PC. This is true to the extent that most virus are constructed to attack Microsoft systems. This makes me feel a little safer sifting through all those payload emails that pour into my inbox every day. But other than the fact that there are less viruses written for a Mac, is the Mac really inherently safer? Apparently not. This years Vancouver based hackfest (CanFestWest) PWN to OWN contest resulted in a really poor showing for the latest Mac system. Hackers were tasked with gaining entry to a designated file on each computer. The first to do so got to keep the computer (thus the OWN part of PWN to OWN) and some cash money. The Mac in question was an updated MacBook Air and it went down in two minutes thanks to a vulnerable Safari browser. It took two days to crack the Microsoft PC (a super tiny Fujitsu U810 ) running Vista SP1.  A third party app, Adobe's flash, was the weak link for the PC. So is there a really secure OS out there. After three days of hacking a Sony VAIO laptop running the free Linux OS - Ubuntu 7.10 was the last book standing. 

There was a time when I had more time. I am sneaking in a couple hours of play time online. I created a twitter account cause jray says it's cool. We'll see how that goes. I can't post to a blog with any regularity, how am I going to post those most mundane moments of my day. working....coffee...squirrels screwing outside my window...hour long phone call. I set up a  Technorati Profile. Which explains the link, and i spent a little time reviewing the iPhone SDK and Adobe Flex/Air. Two more things I don't have the time to get into. I watched some podcasts. One of which informed me that Mr. motivational himself Tony Robbins is launching a social network. Thankfully the target market is the GenX (me) crowd and up. I don't know if this is it but PeopleJam is a new social network with a purpose, and it's not jam made out of people. The stated purpose is "to create a new type of online community for the 60 million Americans interested in "purposeful living" and personal development". That sounds too motivational for me, but I cannot ignore such a well crafted sales pitch and . . . I joined. My interests are: Eating more healthy food, Better quality family time and eliminating debt. Upon joining I was encouraged to seek out new buddies so that "by forming a direct connection with them, they can become a great influence in your life." Unfortunately, I don't have time to seek out a 'life coach' this evening. If anyone wants to be my PeopleJam buddy, motivator or see my photo, I can be found here, hoping to find meaning among virtual friends.

I am about to walk away from the desk, get a cup of coffee and start my morning over after experiencing the most unintuitive, frustrating slap-in-the-face online customer experience. I am planning to add an additional TV but have satellite in two rooms already. I just want the local channels but I'm thinking maybe i'll get a basic cable channel install instead of a new HD antenna. So I go to the comcast site...where I am not allowed to view pricing without putting in an address. I can understand the local issues there. But I still can't see prices because it recognizes my address as a current subscriber (internet) and I have to log in.

- - I edited out the entire process here because it was a pointless rant. Needless to say it took me around 15 minutes just to log in. - -

 I log in - - - Still No Prices. As a loyal customer I am offered "special" bundles. Which for cable ranges between $54 - $120 month. I click on the Shop, See All Products link. But I don't get to see all the products. I am escorted back to the items i am "allowed" to buy. I then see a little link that says 'See Channel Lineup". There I see an option called "Basic". Ah Ha - this is what i want. The locals,  some news, a couple of multi cultural's and if I want some drama, there's the Hallmark Channel.

But still no pricing. So I break down and call where after a short wait I am told it's 16 bucks. Thanks, was that so hard.

Anyway, my point here is a company's website is an extension of the brand. At any point where a customer interacts with the company is an opportunity to build trust and loyalty. Most companies seem to know this, yet certain companies seem to stumble with this concept every time. Denver based US West was more often than not referred to as US Worst, and now Qworst after the Qwest buyout. Thanks to competition such a VOIP, many users don't have to use Qwest any longer. Business owners strive to create passionate users. These are the people that loyally buy only from you; your coffee, your shoes, your services, etc. Aside from the expected technical glitches, Comcast's services are not all that bad. That part of the brand experience equation works. It's the customer service touch point that hurts. You know your doing something seriously wrong when you have inspired a legion of current and ex-customers that are passionate about hating your company. What company inspires headlines like "Horrible Service Reps, Terrible Phone Service and Less Than Appealing Prices. That's Right, It's Comcast" or "Comcast Tech Bullies Customer for Cash, Breaks His Hard Drive, Drills Huge Holes In Walls And Baseboards" in fact just google "comcast sucks" for 89,000 sites citing a shared experience of poor service.

And now there's 89,001

This song has been around for a while but it's so damn catchy. I can't get it out of my head. I m not helping myself by listening to song over and over. I want Tegan and Sara action figures. As a note to myself. I just transfered all my apps to the new Mac (Leopard yes!). Mac's default color profile results in some horrible mismatched RGB colors which results in some very frustrating web design experiences. Without getting into the details of why, the fix is easy; switch the color profile from AppleRGB to sRGB IEC1966-2.1. Heres a more detailed explanation.

After testing the waters, last night I finished transferring all my spreadsheets over to Mac Numbers. I heart spreadsheets and Numbers is a pleasure to use. If your accustomed to Excel it will take a little bit of time to get acquainted with how Mac manages multiple tables in a single document. It makes sense but performing equations across table still fills a bit awkward. However making colorful charts has never been so fun and I recommend anyone considering the switch to jump right in. I haven't had a chance to play with Pages yet but It can't be too hard to top the convoluted mess that Word has become. JRAY sent me a screenshot of their change tracking. Anyone who has seen a heavily edited doc with change tracking knows how difficult it can be to follow. Someday I'll try Keynote for kicks but I hope to never give a presentation in my lifetime.

Happy Belated Halloween! Check out this nice trailer. For Halloween I made my brother sit through Bubba Ho-Tep cause everyone should experience Bruce Cambell kick mummy ass as Elvis. Now that Halloween is over, there's no more excuse to eat little candy bars all day.

It's Saturday and I woke up at 5:30 this morning with the song 'Party Time" stuck in my head. This 45 Grave song was from the soundtrack of the 1985 classic "The Return of the Living Dead" which had a decent soundtrack that included The Cramps, TSOL and The Damned. I haven't seen the movie in a looong time and the vinyl is packed away somewhere along with another great 80's soundtrack from Repo Man. It seems both of these albums are on CD now so I'd like to rip em. I try not to be nostalgic but I am picking up CDs of the old vinyl when I think about it (Last week I found Big Black's Hammer Party). Speaking of campy horror - last week we checked out the Buffy Musical when the New York cast came to Denver for a performance (and to apparently to visit Casa Bonita since the organizer is from Denver area and what local doesn't have the fond memories). It was a fun sing-along event for fanatics but I enjoyed it anyway. So - for my Zombie fix here's the movie trailer.

Last weekend my wife and I helped Steph hand out these hats at the gate of the Denver Zoo. The event was a private party for National Jewish Hospital employees and their families and we gave out 600 of these hats in under 30 minutes. Then we got to stroll through the zoo at twilight. Much Fun...Thanks Steph.

On the horizon, A number of my paintings will be at the annual Art Exhibit in conjunction with Fiesta Day (September 2nd) at the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo. In addition, one of the paintings has been selected to grace the cover of this years event guide. The State Fair attracts more than 460,000 people over 11 days and Fiesta Day is a celebration of Colorado's Hispanic heritage. The day kicks off with a parade and includes mariachi music, dance, charros, the crowning of the Fiesta Queen as well as a concert by Los Lonely Boys. The art exhibit will be at the Colorado Heritage Center with an artists reception on September 1st. I don't know who else is showing this year, but last years exhibit included some terrific artists that I have known and/or shown with before such as Pamela Acosta, Estevon Lucero and Evelyn Valdez Martinez. 

This afternoon ends my month long showing at CHAC gallery where I also serve on the board. It is also the first time I have had a show in a couple of years as I have been busy with MosGlo.  Serving liquor (wine and beer) is something one typically finds at any opening I have had or have attended. However, as I had mentioned earlier, recently the city of Denver remembered it has an ordinance that prohibits businesses from offering their guests any alcoholic beverages during a public event. For-profit businesses that is. Non Profits (such as CHAC) can apply for a special license that would allow serving liquor at special events (12  per year I think).

No one has ever suggested that gallery drinking has become excessive but it now it seems that most galleries are no longer serving wine and beer fearing possible punishment. According to a Denver Post article Tennyson Gallery's Trina Hoefling posted a sign that in part read "Though she's refused to tell us for sure, Mayor Hick's Director of Excise and Licenses, Helen Gonzales, has apparently determined that it's necessary to interpret an arcane state statute so as to make it illegal for you to enjoy a complimentary glass of wine while you visit our gallery ..."

The fear is that less people will be attracted to the "Art Walk" concept which for many includes a dinner and a stroll to view art and have a drink. For artists and business owners along Denver's first friday hotspots (Sante Fe Drive and Tennyson) the increased foot traffic is a crucial make or brake evening for the bottom line. Such is that case at CHAC where a poor night in "donations" could effect other programs.

A recent article in Westword declares that "Denver's Art District on Santa Fe remains officially dry" and quotes Jack Pappalardo, president of the district and owner of Habitat Gallery as saying "We're trying very hard to dispel the reputation of just a big party."

An opening is a great way to meet friends, colleges and potential buyers. CHAC did have a license to serve for the event (as a fundraiser) and the gallery was packed. As a board member that was terrific, The gift shop and wine/beer sales that help fund our cultural programing were brisk. However, as an artist showing in a "Gallery" it was too crowded. The license meant we had to police the doors to make sure no one left with a cup which created  traffic issues and increased the number of people milling around. Wall to wall people meant no one could see the walls or the art that was hung on it. Potential buyers couldn't get in the door and if they did glimpse some art finding a gallery representative was difficult.

It's interesting how a non-issue can become an issue when we're told we shouldn't be doing it. First Fridays are about art and community and if alcohol was becoming a distraction then the galleries would police themselves. Which is what most galleries were already doing. Many galleries along Santa Fe Drive had already stop providing drinks altogether and CHAC was closing the bar early. 

I wondered what my pets do during the day? Turns out not much. Pablocito sleeps on his back, Grom sleeps on the couch, and Pigeon prefers a shoebox. Today was a bit slow so I had a chance to take inventory of the work I'll be showing at the gallery next month. So now everything is framed and ready to go for Sunday and I also finished updating the paintings online (view).

 

Happy Cinco de Mayo! I just put up some new photos from this weekends events. A Friday night at CHAC Gallery with art, food and chldren dancing. Then on Saturday my brother and I took in the parade and a day of food and music in City Park. Photos (left to right): Turkeys legs are not just for ye ole merrymakers anymore. Maestro Rodarte's dance class prepare for their presentation and Tony 'white gloves" Vecchio dishes out the goods for my brother. Speaking of Vecchio, I recently put up one of his popular Frida Kahlo crosses for sale on the CHAC website along with some other handmade items.

I often refer to an application like Photoshop or Dreamweaver as the most used app on my computer. But in reality, it's the browser. Sunrise to sunset the browser gets some serious mileage.

In terms of usability, I appreciate that Microsoft's IE browser was finally updated to meet the standards set by Mozilla Firefox, But Firefox is still tops in it's ability to provide a solid user experience (sadly, Safari is gathering dust on the dock). Extensions such as Web Developer have made Firefox the developers choice and recently, two Firefox extensions have made Firefox even more fun to use. The first is Sage, a lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator that opens as a sidebar in the browser. The second app is FireFTP; your basic FTP client. Both of these add-ons get the job done intuitively without those cumbersome, unnecessary "features". Best of all, I used to have three applications to handle web surfing, rss feeds and server access. Now I cleared some space on the dock and can still check the MosaicGlobe RSS feeds, surf and update client projects; insuring that the browser will remain the most used application I have.

However, since I am exposing the geek...I am pleased to have found a way to organize all those random text files floating around the Mac. MyNotes is a note manager that has reduced (or supplanted) my dependence on notepad. Now I need a rock solid spam blocker for Mac Mail.

I am working from home today. Well, I was trying to work from home today but the house is filled with the incredible aroma of roasted chile waiting to be skinned.  Fall officially arrived when my wife brought home two bushels of freshly roasted chile home last night. I peeled a small batch to have for breakfast and lunch (and probably more for dinner). We usually get our chile at the end of the month but flooding in Hatch, New Mexico was threatening to drive the prices up. Of course that didn't happen and now the smell of the chiles sitting in my studio was too intoxicating to work so I went for a bike ride instead.

The air is a bit brisk today and the afternoon has that colorado fall dryness that causes nose bleeds. I am sad to see summer come to an end but I love fall even through it marks the time of year when I put on a few extra pounds in comfort food. A bowl of Pork Chile anyone?

My friend Becca sent me her collection of scary haunted music! So now I am ready for Halloween. Here's a sample to get everyone ready for that most special time of the year.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the personal computer; which marks the marriage of Microsoft and the disk operating system (MSDOS) backed by what was then the "Microsoft' sized business behemoth known as IBM. Of course the mistake IBM made was not getting exclusive rights to the operating system and now Bill Gates is the richest man in the universe. To honor this event PC WORLD put together a list  of the 25 greatest PCs of all Time. The Atari 800 - my Second PC (the Atari 400 was the first) came in at number 14. My brothers and I spent many nights traveling through Zork (without the aid of graphics), blasting Tie-fighter-like ships in Space Raiders and saving my 128-color rich cities from certain doom in Missile Command.  My BASIC programs were stored on a cassette player and I had a voice synthesizer programmed to say "Shall we play a game?". Yes, let's do. Actually, not really. I got nostalgic a while back and installed an Atari emulator. Those games really blow today. I'll stick with Halo.

The Ordinary Boys (named after a song from Morrissey's Viva Hate) version feels like The Specials ghost town sung by Morrissey doing Madness. The original video shot The Boys and Lady S in separate locations. It is a higher quality, but I like this one better. I don't know why this UK single isn't available on iTunes yet.

Had a nice extended weekend. We celebrated my brothers bday with some Tiki flavored Putt Putt (or miniature golf). However, there is nothing Miniature about a Giant Tiki God that spews fire out of it's head when you land a golf ball in it's mouth. Fireworks are banned in Denver this year. A bummer to the owners of firework stands along the front range who can't even sell fireworks in the metro area, but a boon to little fingers who get to stay on hands, and to homes and fields that will remain uncharred. Anyway, who cares when you have a front row seat to a professional display; and we did thanks to Patrick and Katie who organized another great BBQ - despite the rain (photos). Last night the Colorado Symphony Orchestra performed a concert in City Park. Alison insists it was to celebrate Canadian Independence Day. We had hoped to see the Coors field fireworks from the park but no luck. So now today is the 4th and I think I will express my patriotism with a five o clock showing of 'An Inconvenient Truth'.

Shanna brought back some terrific photos from her trip to Hawaii. Along with chocolate, knick knacks and a burn...oh, and memories, fond memories.